SoundSpel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
SoundSpel is a English language spelling reform proposal. Its origins date back to 1910. SoundSpel has been endorsed by the American Literacy Council because English speakers can easily read it.
Contents |
[edit] Description
[edit] Phonetics
Phonemes are represented as follows:
| Notation | Vowel of |
|---|---|
| a | sat |
| e | set |
| i | dit |
| o | dot |
| u | cut |
| Notation | Vowel of |
|---|---|
| ae | say |
| ee | see |
| ie | die |
| oe | doe |
| ue | cue |
| Notation | Vowel of |
|---|---|
| ar | bar |
| er | per |
| or | for |
| Notation | Vowel of |
|---|---|
| arr | barry |
| err | perry |
| orr | sorry |
| Notation | Vowel of |
|---|---|
| air | air |
| aa | alm |
| oo | moon |
| uu | book |
| oi | oil |
| ou/ow | out |
| au/aw | saw |
| ur | tour |
| Notation | As used in |
|---|---|
| b | bat |
| c/k | cat, kit |
| ch | chat |
| d | did |
| f | fat |
| g | gag |
| h | hat |
| j | jet |
| l | let |
| m | met |
| n | net |
| ng | song, ringing |
| nk | ink |
| p | pep |
| q | quake |
| r | red |
| s | set |
| sh | shed |
| t | tot |
| th | thin |
| th | this |
| v | van |
| w | war |
| wh | why |
| x | box |
| y | yes |
| z | zoo |
| zh | azure |
[edit] Exceptions and other differences
U, meaning you, is always capital.
No change in was, as, of, the, he, she, me, we, be, do, to, thru, off, -ful, and their compounds such as being, together, thruout, offer, helpful.
No change in plural-s (jobs ), possessive-s (man's), and in 3d person present tense singular (he runs), even though the s is pronounced z.
No change in the letter pair 'th'-- which occurs more frequently than any consonant digraph. Similarly the letter 'x' is retained for both voiced (gz) and unvoiced (ks). The unvoiced occurrences outnumber the voiced 5 to 1, and words normally calling for voiced-x are understood even if pronounced with an unvoiced x.
No change in the spelling of short (schwa) vowels in the unstressed syllables of words like organ, novel, pensil, lemon -- unless the spelling clearly misleads in a deliberate overpronunciation of the word, as in "mountain".
Depending on its position in the word or root, the unstressed "½-ee" continues to be spelled e i or y| the unstressed syllables of between, detect, reform, champion, editorial, hapyest, fifty.
rr, as in traditional orthography, indicates that the preceding vowel is short -- carry, merry, sorry.
ll indicates that the preceding 'a' is pronounced 'aw' fall, tall, call.
The long-0 or long-I sound at the end of a word may be written with a single letter -- banjo, go, so, alibi, hi, fli, mi (--but banjoes, alibieing, flies, etc.)
A hyphen following a vowel indicates that that vowel is long: re-enter, co-operaet.
If two vowels -- such as ea -- do not match a digraph on the SoundSpel chart, then the syllable ends with the first vowel: react (ea is not a digraph), jeenius, memorial, creaetiv, etc. In cases of more than 2 vowels the syllable ends with the first digraph: flooid (oo, being the first digraph, ends the syllable -- not flooid), hieest, freeing, inueendo, power, continueing, paeabl, evalueaet.
[edit] Examples
[edit] The Star
It was on the ferst dae of the nue yeer the anounsment was maed, allmoest siemultaeniusly frum three obzervatorys, that the moeshun of the planet Neptune, the outermoest of all planets that wheel about the Sun, had becum verry erratic. A retardaeshun in its velosity had bin suspected in Desember. Then a faent, remoet spek of liet was discuverd in the reejon of the perterbd planet. At ferst this did not cauz eny verry graet exsietment. Sieentific peepl, however, found the intelijens remarkabl enuf, eeven befor it becaem noen that the nue body was rapidly groeing larjer and brieter, and that its moeshun was qiet different frum the orderly progres of the planets. – Herbert George Wells
[edit] Britten when yung
We mae nowadaes be chairy about uezing the werd "jeenius", but we stil hav a guud iedeea whut is ment bi it. For exampl, thair ar graet numbers of verry gifted muezishans hoo ar admierd but not calld jeeniuses. But thair ar uthers, manifestly prodijus, performing offen at extraordinerrily erly aejes, a varieety of feets so complex that the muezical laeman cuud hardly imajin, eeven with the moest desperet laebor, acomplishing eny of them, whiel eeven muezishans ar astonisht and we then reech for the guud, handy, vaeg Enlietenment werd and call them jeeniuses. The list incloods Mozart and Mendelssohn; and, despiet all the limiting jujments, it incloods Benjamin Britten. – Frank Kermode
[edit] Oed to a Nietingael
Mi hart aeks, and a drouzy numnes paens Mi sens, as tho of hemlok I had drunk, Or emptyd sum dul oepiaet to the draens Wun minit past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not thru envy of thi hapy lot, But beeing too hapy in thien hapynes, That thow, liet-wingèd Dryad of the trees, In sum meloedius plot Of beechen green, and shadoes numberles Singest of sumer in fuul-throeted eez. – John Keats
[edit] History
In 1910 philologist Alexander John Ellis played a major role in developing a system now known as "Classic New Spelling". Walter Ripman and William Archer wrote the first dictionary of the system, "New Spelling" (NuSpelling), which was republished in 1941 by the Simplified Spelling Society.
In 1969 Godfrey Dewey improved upon Ripman's and Archer's work, producing "World English Spelling". Dewey and Edward Rondthaler, a prominent typesetter, CEO of International Typeface Corporation, corresponded from 1971.
In 1986 the book "Dictionary of Simplified American Spelling" written by Rondthaler and Edward Lias was published by the American Language Academy. Its full title was "Dictionary of American spelling: A simplified alternative spelling for the English language : written as it sounds, pronounced as it's written". This called for improvements to spelling, with clearer rules and better grapheme/ phoneme correspondence. It was slightly less strict than Classic New Spelling, allowing "the" rather than "dhe", for example.
The system was further reformed from 1987 on and became SoundSpel™.
[edit] Advantages
- Does not introduce any new symbols, unlike the Shavian and Deseret alphabets.
- Relies upon familiar digraphs.
- Does not assign unusual notations for sounds (ex. using q for the ng sound)
- Does not introduce diacriticals (accents), which are typically not favored by North Americans.
- Does not dramatically change the appearance of existing words.
- Improves consistency of writing and speech.
- Generally decreases text length.
[edit] Disadvantages
- The phonetics is based upon the General American accent and thus is harder to use for people with other accents.
